in her husband's carriage.

"It is still your wish, then?" said Sir Murray to the Rector, as he
stood upon the doorstep.

"Yes, yes!--for Heaven's sake, yes! Go, by all means."

"Give him that note, then, should he make inquiry?" said Sir Murray. "I
have your word for that?"

"Yes--yes; indeed you have," said the Rector; "but I have known Philip
Norton from a boy. He was my pupil; and when calm, I have no doubt I
shall have some influence with him. That and time will do the rest.
Heaven bless you! be gentle with her. Marion, my child, good-bye!"

The wheels grated loudly over the gravel; but the heart-broken man,
lying prone in the churchyard, heard them not; and five minutes after,
when the old Rector had seen the carriage disappear at a turn of the
road, he turned to encounter the agitated countenance of Ada Lee.

Book 1, Chapter VI.

AMIDST THE PINES.

"Going out, my child?" said the Rector. "Where is your aunt?"

"Gone to lie down," said Ada; "she feels this excitement."

"No wonder--no wonder," said the old gentleman. "Pray Heaven that it
may turn out happily!"

The Rector's prayer was echoed by Ada Lee, as she passed out into the
garden and stood thinking for a few minutes upon the lawn. Where should
she go? she asked herself, for her mind was strangely agitated, and it
seemed to her that to be at rest she must go right away from human
habitation, and seek for calm in solitude. The events of the past
four-and-twenty hours had been too much for her, she said, and a long
quiet walk would restore her.

But, even to herself, Ada Lee could not confess all. She knew that her
heart seemed at times to beat wildly, and that though she crushed down
such thoughts with all her might, a strange feeling of elation would
strive to assert itself; and even while upbraiding herself for her
cruelty, she felt that she did not grieve as she should for the
sufferings of her friends. She could stay no longer in the house,
though she felt that her place should have been at her aunt's side; and
now, hastily crossing the garden, her heart again commenced its
tumultuous beating, as she passed over the very spot where she had seen
the dark figure the night before--a figure which, she now felt
convinced, must have been that of Philip Norton, who had come over from
the town too late to see any of the family, while on his arrival at the
Rectory that morning he had learned the news which had sent him,
reeling, to the c